


but never friends

by forgettheghosts



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Drabble, M/M, canon levels of touken but not too much bc we know how i feel about that, past shuuneki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:51:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgettheghosts/pseuds/forgettheghosts
Summary: In Shuu’s memories, Kaneki appeared bathed in light and blood.





	but never friends

**Author's Note:**

> a drabble for Shuu, who has been abandoned by Ishida apparently. Born from my frustration that he just got over kaneki in a instant after years of grieving.  
> title from hold me tight or don't.   
> no flames. constructive criticism welcome.

Occasionally, Kaneki would meet Shuu’s eyes.

Never for long, and of course the other man never acknowledged it happened. But for a moment, Kaneki’s stoicism would break, and Shuu would catch a flurry of emotions passing behind his eyes.

He liked to think that guilt was among them.

* * *

When Goat formed, when Kaneki crowned himself King of their kind, he had spoken to Shuu the night after.

“Do I have your loyalty?”

Shuu had looked at him, and there were many things he wanted to say.

_I was ready to kill you for your own good_ , he thought. _I know every inch of you. I can still taste you on my tongue. I have been inside you and felt the parts of you that no one else has ever known. I see you in my dreams._

_Even while you ripped my family apart, I ached for you._

Instead, he just smiled the same empty smile he has given to every absent lover and false friend.

“Of course, my King.”

* * *

When he had been at his sickest, as Kanae and Matsumae wiped feverish sweat from his brow, he knew he had called out for Kaneki. He had imagined a halo of white hair approaching him, cool dry palms on his cheek, a gentle press of a kiss on his forehead (though he was certain Kaneki had never kissed him so gently.)

When he thought Shuu was asleep, he remembered that Kanae had cried.

* * *

Kaneki and Touka announced their engagement, and Shuu threw himself into preparations. He was good at that- planning outfits and schedules, designing wardrobes and flower arrangements. Matsumae had joked before that he would have made a better Geisha then heir to a fortune.

He had found himself agreeing.

Cheers and singing filled the underground city. Moods had been lifted, and up on the platform Kaneki and Touka were both smiling.

Shuu carefully avoided drinking too much blood wine and ignored Banjou’s heavy glances at his back.

* * *

Three years earlier, six months into their little rebellion and tucked away in Kaneki’s room at the safehouse, Shuu had sat up to leave. He had been about to pick his shirt up off the floor when a cold hand (Kaneki’s hands were always cold) snaked around his wrist.

He glanced back, and saw mismatched eyes staring back at him.

“Will you stay? Just for tonight?” Kaneki asked, so quiet and hesitant it was almost a whisper.

Shuu smiled. “Of course, mon couer.”

He lay back down and wrapped himself around Kaneki’s body, still sweaty and slick from the rest of the night.

_I could stay here forever_ , he thought.

Just for that moment, such sentiment seemed admissible.

* * *

When Kaneki’s human friend (Nagachika- Shuu remembered him vaguely from Anteiku, and Kaneki had spoken of him on occasion) returned from the dead, Shuu felt himself pitying a human for the first time.

He looked at Kaneki the same way Shuu suspected he himself did on occasion. He was clearly in love with him, and from his covered face Shuu could only assume his departure from Kaneki life hadn’t been a pleasant one.

He finally saw the man’s face one day when he had yanked down his mask to more clearly bark orders over the comms.

_Well, Kaneki. You outdo yourself every time you leave someone, don’t you?_

 

* * *

 

In Shuu’s memories, Kaneki appeared bathed in light and blood. He was beautiful; draped across the sofa in pyjamas reading a battered novel, kneeling on the concrete with pieces of flesh in his teeth. He was breathtaking with his thighs spread open, head thrown back and breath quick with gasps, and standing before the Tokyo sunset with his kagune around a man’s throat.

In the present, Shuu was just one of many who had watched Kaneki move on and walk away.


End file.
